Caroline Nortin - A Letter to the Queen

Caroline Norton was an English writer that was trapped in a horrible marriage with a man that caused her physical, mental, and emotional pain. As a result, Norton wrote a letter to the Queen describing the legal injustices that women suffer and attempted to change these legal injusticies to treat women on a level equal to men. Because of these one-sided laws, Norton lost custody of her children and was denied the privilege of seeing them. I feel as though this is outrageous. Reading Norton's descriptions of how one-sided marriage laws were infuriated me.

If the wife sue for separation for cruelty, it must be "cruelty that endangers life or limb," and if she has once forgiven, or, in legal phrase "condoned" his offences, she cannot plead them; though her past forgiveness only proves that she endured as long as endurance was possible" (pg 565, Paragraph Six).

Based on prior knowledge, I knew that men had the upper hand in history, but I did not know that the law went to extents as great as the aformentioned in quotations. I do not understand how the government could sit aside an watch a woman suffer in a brutal marriage and not grant her a fair separation. I would like to believe that if a woman has suffered all of the domestic violence that she is able to tolerate, then the courts will grant her a divorce. Unfortunately, Norton's letter says otherwise. Reading texts like this make me appreciate what freedoms and privileges that women today possess. I am grateful to be born into the United States and I am glad that I was born into the year that I was born. After reading this letter, my respect for the struggling women of the past has grown.